Hungarian Parliament members voice support for EU membership candidate status for Georgia

Lorinc Nacsa, a member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Hungary, said on Wednesday Hungary would support granting Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina the European Union membership candidate status alongside Ukraine and Moldova. 

The European Commission last week recommended the European council to grant EU membership candidacy for Ukraine and Moldova, while recommending granting Georgia a “European perspective” before assessing how the country meets a number of conditions for receiving the membership candidate status. The recommendation is expected to be confirmed by the EU on Friday.

Speaking to MTI news agency on the sidelines of a summer session of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg, Nacsa said the integration of Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina “must not be considered separately from that of Ukraine and Moldova”, arguing the separate approach to the states would weaken the EU.

In crisis situations, the EU would do well to grasp the opportunity to grant candidate status to countries that have worked a lot to achieve that goal over the past years. [..] We reject any measures of the European Commission seeking to create a division between those countries”, he said.

Barna Zsigmond, another member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Hungary, also made comments about Georgia and said giving “full attention” to Ukraine and Moldova while “ignoring” Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina would be “tantamount to betrayal” and called it a “strategic and geopolitical mistake”.